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This map turned out to be quite the exercise in assignment interpretation.

Our magazine editor turned to me for what appeared to be a fairly simple map, but he had some very specific styles in mind. I had a clipping indicating what color palette to use, another with a design/format example to follow. Oh yeah, and I had to incorporate a provided map.

OK, it sounds simple enough. But diving into the process, I found early on that I had to be methodical to ensure I nailed all the specs right in Illustrator.

It worked. My only regret is that the process is a little too time-consuming to integrate into our paper. Too bad; the graphics would be a lot cooler. Someday, maybe.

(BTW, there's no labels on this map because I was asked to allow the designer to put them on to maintain consistency with fonts. Which suited me fine since labeling is the worst part of designing maps. So monotonous.)

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UPDATE: I actually did figure out a way to integrate this style into our regular graphics for the paper using Google Earth and Photoshop. I honed the process and styles myself for a few months and am now passing off the process to our front-page designers. I'll post a few here sometime.